Good Bye 2019 !
Just back from the yearly Harvest Imaging Forum 2019, and then it is time to reflect back on 2019. The year was very busy again, but not just because of the work with Harvest Imaging, but also because I lost my last parent. Unfortunately these things happen if one gets older, at a particular moment, your parents’ life is coming to an end …
As far as the business of Harvest Imaging is concerned, it was a kind of another year very similar to the previous ones. Courses continued, public as well as in-house trainings were added and added. It is really amazing how many companies are working in the digital imaging field, and how many fresh engineers start an imaging career. Digital image capturing was, is and will be a growing activity. Many companies are looking after (experienced) imaging engineers, our profession still has a great future !
Harvest Imaging continued with the consulting activities as well. All this type of work is protected by NDA’s and more information about the content of the projects cannot be revealed.
The project about reproducibility, variability and reliability of CMOS imagers was continued. Another 1000 measurements are added to the list I had already. On a very short term the 7th characterization session in a row of 10 (to cover a span of 5 years) will start. Then all cameras will be placed on the testbench and will be measured over and over again ! The characteristics of the cameras/sensors at room temperature seem to be very predictable, but things change drastically when the temperature and the humidity of the stressing conditions are increased. Another experiment is started in 2019 : putting the devices under a strong light source that is simulating sun light. Also in this experiment surprising first results are obtained, but many more measurements and stress moments are needed before a final conclusion can be taken. As is very often the case : a new measurement raises two new questions !
On a more general technical and scientific level, 2019 was a another year with an International Image Sensor Workshop, held at Snow Bird (Utah, US). In combination with ISSCC and IEDM, again great technical and scientific achievements were published, a lot of material to study and a lot of stuff to learn from. Thanks for all the authors to bring their work into the public domain, it is an incredible source of information where the imaging community can learn from.
So now that 2019 is almost completed, the question is : “What will 2020 bring ?”. The technical courses and trainings of Harvest Imaging will continue, that is for sure. Several courses are already booked. A new course will be added to the existing basket : “The colour pipeline of a CMOS camera”. It is a kind of a chapter out of the course “Digital camera systems” (a 4-days course that existed already), which is extended to cover 2 days. Besides that, some crazy idea exists to start with a two-week Summer School. Harvest Imaging is working with potential customers to see whether there could be enough interest to justify a commercial success of such an initiative. Something to look forward to.
Wishing all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. “See” you soon.
Albert, 15-12-2019.